Twenty Years Ago Today I Met My Husband

 A portion of Last year's anniversary card, we hand make cards for each other.

Wow I was 25, and I can't believe so much time has passed. Twenty years ago we met, and we got married 16 years ago on May 9th. We have been through thick and thin. One of my friends at a support group told me she was impressed by how we had made it through so much, hard times, and my health problems and economic problems and rest and were there for each other. It was one of those times where someone says something so nice, it brings tears to your eyes. I am thankful we both stuck it out, and have bore up through some pretty hard times. We are both old school when it comes to marriage, so that helped us both. I know my husband is one of the reasons I am still alive. It is love when it endures through thick and thin. I love him very much.

The World's Fattest Bride
Fat Love

Dating While Fat: How I Met My Husband.

                                     [picture source]
I never expected to marry. In fact by age 25, my family had written me off as a perpetual spinster. Being an Aspie, shy and fat, I barely had dated. I placed a singles ad, detailing myself as an eccentric artist demanding finally a girlfriend and drug FREE boyfriend. In the ad I admitted I was near 300lbs. [my weight gain had begun around this time]

Using this ad, I dated a Momma's boy architect, a slow security guard, a bi-sexual man who wanted the "experience of being with a large woman", and a laughing gas addict into techno music who at the age of 35 still lived in his parent's basements. There were never any second dates.

Due to all this disappointment, I almost didn't show up on my future husband and I's first date. Expecting disappointment, I talked myself into being polite and showing up at a the Olive Garden where I then lived. It's a good thing I went and didn't let the voice in my head steer me wrong telling me to blow off the date.

He showed up wearing black jeans and leather boots. I was instantly attracted. I had worn a black top with many buttons, a semi-gothic outfit of mine with a black skirt. Oddly we matched. He was large and tall with long blonde hair. Here was no wimp. The physical attraction was strong but so was the other things that lead people to each other. He also was extremely intelligent and I could talk about anything with him. We were talking about poetry, art, music and history. I was smittened.

I was very attracted. I would go home and even write some love poetry. He had kissed me on the cheek. I would go home hoping he'd call. By the second date, we were kissing on the grounds of my old college--I still lived in the town it was in. By the third date, we were joking about getting married. We would go to spend hours and hours in the resort town where he worked as a newspaper reporter. Sometimes I would wait for him and we would go sit on the beach at midnight and into the early morning hours. That was a very romantic place for courtship with it's breaking surf, sunsets over the water, and light houses. I'd recommend the place highly to anyone for falling in love.

Our relationship would go on to be forged in fire over the next years. Both of us probably failed to know what was coming as I have detailed on this blog, with the money and health problems but this April 29, will be the 20th anniversary of that first date. 

I Survived Catholic School and My Parent's Religion

 

I love this sign. I was educated by nuns in full habit. No, they didn't get the rulers out on us. Corporal punishment was outlawed in my state by that time. In some ways being part of a smaller private school was probably easier on a bookworm fat Aspie, but it's also another way I slid through the cracks in getting any of my neurological differences dealt with outside of being labeled "gifted" at the time and put in a "Great Books" program.

Today I am a born again Christian and no longer Catholic. I left that church when I was 18 years old, but I formed the majority of my childhood memories growing up in a colonial house in a well-heeled suburb next to a large metro city where my father worked. Our house was across the street from the Catholic church, school and convent, rectory, cemetery and my best friend's home. Her father was the church's janitor. I escaped home as much as I could hanging out at all of the above for as many hours as possible between the ages of 7-13 when we moved away. To be frank, my home away from home even with my present major theological differences, probably saved me from a worse fate as I had somewhere to "belong" to and be a part of as a child.

                                                             [source: Catholicsupply.com]

I and my siblings were all born only one year apart from each other. All of us wore uniforms to school-in this case blue checkered plaid, Peter Pan Collars, saddle shoes and in my brother's case, blue pants and button down blue shirt. Some of our nuns were nice. With names like Sister Mary Helen, Margaret, Ann, and other variations.  My fifth grade teacher happened to be my favorite as I became the teacher's pet and stayed after school to help her with grading papers and cleaning the classroom. She told me all the time how smart I was and what a good artist I had become. Many of our nuns were sincere and truly wanted to "help change the world for the better" and desired to impart moral lessons.

Of course we had the mean nuns too including one who taught math and science and some days would just sit and stare at us, on a day she wasn't in the mood to lecture the class. I wonder today if she was forced into teaching via her order, and showing us her unhappiness. I don't think the nun's life ended up being a happy one for all of them. Many taught for little pay and reward and probably ended up leaving the order with the passage of years.

                                               [picture source]

From time to time I'd visit the convent behind the school when getting the rare volunteer task. The nuns lived very simply with a basement recreation room with a piano, concrete floor and folding chairs, and little bedrooms with a twin bed, crucifix and small nightstand next to the bed. I remember thinking there'd be no way I'd join a convent. While 8-10 women had a little bedroom each to call their own and a very austerely furnished house--just with the necessities-- the priests lived in a nice home across the way, with real art on the walls and golden candlesticks on the mantel and a housekeeper. These differences did not escape my youthful notice.

We had one young handsome priest who was very nice to all of us, and he was considered the "cool" priest who talked to all the kids and helped them with their problems. Years later, I would find out he had left the priesthood to get married. Probably all the junior high girls who swooned over him probably wouldn't have been surprised.

My life at the time was full of Catholic rituals and rites. This included Mass twice a week, Soup Suppers, Confession past second grade, Confirmation Class and retreats. The Retreats were fun because they were an excuse to get out of the house for a few days, but one always ended up with priests asking us weird questions and giving us personality tests and endless hours of praying, rosaries and even more boring Masses.

                                         [source Minnesota Public Radio]

My best friend's house was next to the convent, an older house, it  was part of the church complex and given to her family since they were refugees from Vietnam. The family was given jobs upon their arrival which basically was cleaning and maintenance of the church and school. All 5 kids in the family joined in on these tasks, so as I went across the street to play in the wide parking lots, or to spend time after school with my teachers, I would run into Loan and her family. My brother would befriend her brothers and we all hung out together. Her family had braved being shot at in a helicopter during the fall of Saigon, and escaped with their lives to come to America. Loan who was in third grade with me barely knew English when her family first came, but learned it fast.  I spent years immersed in Vietnamese culture, hearing her parents speak the language to the children and each other,  Asian music,  decor, sharing meals such as spicy meat dishes and rice and watching Jerry Lewis movies. I still remember the day I tried talking her dad out of turning two live ducks in a cage into dinner.

Many hours were spent playing kickball or 4-square in the huge expansive parking lots between all the buildings and exploring the cemetery with it's tombstones dated back to the 1800s. Other times, I would accompany Loan and her siblings as they were given cleaning jobs to do and her parents cleaned and polished the school's long green hallways or polished the pews and altar in church.

I was a young Aspie, shy, and mocked for being fat all the time, but with Loan and her brothers I shared a special friendship. This brought a lot of joy to my young life, and leaving on the very day of my thirteenth birthday when my family moved away was especially painful. I would write letters to Loan many of which I still have, until I was into college but we would lose contact with each other when I lost her address by accident and she had just moved due to a marriage. Years later I would have contact with one of her brothers but not be able to regain it with her.

While some of my teachers were happy enough over my decent grades and high test scores, others could not stand my inquisitive nature and found it off-putting. I often got sent to the principal's office for asking the religion teacher too many questions. I would not arrive at my later adult born again Christian faith until after years of "free-thought" and religious exploration and study and at the age of 10, I was a budding atheist. Able to read adult books by the age of 6, I read a Thomas Paine essay in a history book, and grilled the nuns with my questions. They didn't take to this too well. There was one time I was marched off to the rectory for the parish priest to yell at me, for telling a nun in religion class that Purgatory made no sense. I don't think the nuns knew what to do with a kid who was reading the Bible and books like "Late Great Planet Earth" from the library--thus knowing what the evangelicals were up to and other books on everything from evolution to famous atheists coming up with so many questions. Other times I got sent to the principal for a few fights or sassing back to teachers.  However life was easier with the teachers by far then it was at home.....

                                          [picture source]

Have any of you seen that video, "Pissed Catholic Mother" on Youtube? That one has had nearly 2 million views. I was going to embed it here but there's so many f-bombs I decided not too. The video is of a son saying he is an atheist and saying he doesn't believe in God, and his Catholic mother exploding and basically using every cuss word in the book and she threatens to take all his Christmas presents away. Chances are that is a narcissistic mother.

I saw this video years ago, this is about how well things went for me when I asked any religious questions or dared to say I did not believe in something. I feel sorry for the son in the picture. By the way if I had children, even being a born again Christian, my methods would not include religion via force or coercion.

The weirdness continued even to last year when I wrote about how we were forbidden to talk about anything "religious" at a family dinner I choose not to go to last year. Talk about Controlled minds. As a 40 something adult this crossed the lines of beyond offensive. Just so you know, I witnessed to each adult relative once or twice, and left it at that, and that was at least 10 years ago.

My narcissistic parents did use religion as a "control mechanism". and for "showtime". False pious moments cropped up between screaming and cuss out sessions.  In other words, one could get slapped for forgetting to do the "Sign of the Cross" at dinner just after hearing your Dad scream four letter words in the garage over your brother misplacing a wrench. If one accidentally ate a bologna instead of an egg salad sandwich on a Friday during Lent, all hell would break loose. Hypocrisy doesn't describe one's resultant emotions over that disconnect.

Growing up I was told I would be Catholic and nothing else. For them, I think it was mostly a social and cultural thing but they never missed a Mass. Even today my "golden child" Narcissistic sister who always got mad whenever I tried to talk about the Bible or God, never misses a Mass either. Her kids go to Catholic school too. I came from the kind of family where some relatives banned coming to my wedding because I was married to a lapsed Lutheran. Yes there are still some families like that though things have changed somewhat in the last 20 years.

                                            [picture source]
I still remember the day my mother found out I left the Catholic church to attend another church when I was 18 and out of the house at college, and she started literally screaming "Heathen!" at me as she followed me through the house. I was trying to get away and run upstairs to my bedroom. This word came out over and over as she told me what a horrible person I was.  She ripped up the church bulletin I had left in my bag she had just nosed through without my permission and told me how I was on the slippery slope to hell for being a Catholic "heretic". Ah rather ironic. The Stasi couldn't beat my mother in the control she expected to hold over your heart, mind AND religion. I am the only person in my family who ever has dared to leave the Catholic church "publicly", even those who married someone in another Christian denomination, still participate in all the family church events. My mother required her now husband to join the Catholic church before marrying him. A Methodist for at least 50 years prior, he lined right up. This was history repeating itself as my father left the Orthodox church to join the Roman Catholic church with my mother as well when he married her.

I suppose my mother didn't want to explain to her best friend from school who was a high level nun who worked with bishops but years later left the convent or to her cousin priest about her daughter, but that sort of reaction was over the top. You can just imagine what the reaction was when I tried to ask her about God or heaven, or anything of a spiritual nature when I was a younger child. I learned fast not to talk about those things with my parents. They simply were not interested and would get angry. The displays of piety were just displays.

One weird moment was having my father when we were both in the car driving somewhere tell me when I was around 19, and yelling at me for not being Catholic for the 50th time, that he didn't really believe in Catholicism either, but did it for "social reasons", and that I should too for the "peace". Pleasing my mother came first to that man, including his own and ignoring his children's beliefs, thoughts, desires and needs.

I wasn't that fat as a child by today's standards, but back in the late 1970's I was a fat kid, and teased for it constantly. This is one sad thing I remember about school, which made me cling to the good teachers a bit, and it affected my self esteem to be called "Two Ton Weight" or "Earth Quake" or "Fatty Fatty Two By Four".  I got a nickname too which was based on my last name, and I knew my then, I was "very different" but not sure why. Teachers would send home letters to my parents who ignored them about my difficulty getting along with peers and my being isolated as a result. Some of the nuns kept stricter classrooms but others didn't as well as some low paid lay teachers who let the kids run wild. Aspergers gave me the talent to read multiple books, and remember things making school an easy enterprise from that angle, but the social part of it was bad. I had my Vietnamese friends and one public school friend who was quiet and shy and liked to draw who lived down my street, and not many others.

Catholic school was very different from what public school would have been. In some ways, it was better to be in a small, private school and in other ways worse. I was fortunate to have some friends and teachers who were kind to me and there for me. So I could say "Yes I survived Catholic school and my parents too!"

Update 2019: I am no longer a Christian and have deconverted and returned to the Unitarian Universalist church. I think now about religious things and how much spiritual abuse there is when parents impose a religion on children.

Fear From Fat: The Latest in The Fall Saga

Being this fat can be like living in a cage.

Today I was struggling with trying to get care regarding my knee. For some reason my house call doctors, did not want to come visit me, even though their website promises 24-48 hour sick calls and X-ray services. I found myself asking the office "gatekeeper" who for some reason seems to despise me, even though she has never seen or met me, and I have remained polite, "Do you offer X-ray services?" anymore. I tried to explain my fall had been a week ago, and my knee had relapsed but such nuances just seemed LOST. If I needed the ER I would have already been there, huge bills and all. Note to the doctors who are even nice people and this one is, get rid of the grown-up hall monitors, who make life miserable for everyone who must call a medical office.

I had my husband call them and finally called the local free clinic, for an appt, and also an orthopedic doctor who takes Medicare, even if knee gets better, I need to serious deal with my rapidly declining height. I feel like the medical world is so cold. I know they are "scientists" and the rest but can there be a little bit of *pretend* empathy? My husband did call for me and they did later send in an anti-inflammatory. The fear I had of losing all mobility has gripped my being like tendrils of ice wrapping around the hurting knee.

Obviously I can walk since I am sitting at my computer, and I did go do dishes, one thing being this weight, you better learn to TAKE the pain, or you will be in your bed for good, the fears of losing mobility or becoming bed ridden are IMMENSE and GREAT. I think people who have worse injuries, or lower thresholds for pain, do end up in bed. I do not blame them. My threshold isn't that good, though fear fuels my engine a little bit. You know pain is bad when you are crying just because it hurts so much.

My husband did step up and helped me. Thank God for him. He got me my medication, did most of the dishes, and chores, and helped be a spotter in the shower...[yes I am too afraid to shower alone right now with the knee this messed up]

I know this is one part of being fat when you are in the great weights, that is one of the hardest, the possible falls and the outcomes. The weight does not help. I almost flew out of a car once with a broken door when the driver turned a corner, save for the seatbelt. The gravity of weight only pulls you down.

Some of My Recent Thoughts About Life and The World

I tell myself, don't let them get to you! I found myself telling a group of people at a self help group, I want to confound the doctors, and the rest of the world and live far longer then they would ever expect. Even being this sick, I've outlasted their expectations. Maybe I am whistling by the graveyard, but God will determine how long I make it in this world. It was kind of funny, many friends there said, "You go, girl!"

Even after the fall I said to myself you must push through the pain, and that is something I've learned to do. Wonder how many superfat women think "walk it off" after a great fall? I wonder where the vestiges of that inner coach even came from, a long ago gym class lost in my memory banks somewhere? I guess some of that stuff came in handy, maybe not. LOL I am doing better and able to walk though my left leg is dealing with a bit of a setback.

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Ah weight loss surgery...

Wow even that picture makes me feel like going to puke. I have a sensitive stomach already.

Some steel eyed doctors,  say to conform or to "live", I must enter their Iron Maiden of weight loss surgery, to a life of puking and pain, outdistancing the digestive problems I already have. I trust in God as my hope. With the weight, well, one does what they can and progresses each day. My sugars seem to be reading lower which is a good development. While I have written that I understand why people choose weight loss surgery and to take a spin of that roulette wheel, my view of weight loss surgery has grown more negative. I do not see it as "fixing" anyone. The weight regains are immense. The people even if they manage to keep weight off become more fragile. Why is so much research money and resources being poured into this basically what is torture for the fat? I have known people personally who have died from this surgery. One was a friend who matched me even in the PCOS though she never had any thyroid and other problems, she lost 80 at the start, only a small percentage of her weight, and then became far more frail and sicker from her other health problems. I still think she'd be alive if she had never gotten this surgery done. Even her odd reaction to being on a ventilator, the day after the surgery, seemed to be an avenue, of false hope, now I'll be thin!" The stories of my fat friends, some of whom I have lost, are very sad ones.People pay a heavy, heavy price for that small percentage of weight that comes off, very few lose it all either. Even if they do not die, right off, more health problems come later. If you are thinking about weight loss surgery, do not talk to those who are just 18 months out, but go to 5 years out and beyond!

With the doctors, while I certainly use modern medicine myself, I also believe the more you stay away from some of them the longer you may live. I have put a new blog up on the index called suethsayings that explores some of the dark side of the weight loss surgery world. This blogger while I do not agree with his politics, he's got the WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY CYCLE THING DOWN PAT!

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Ugh I hate this picture, and look she is smiling being so "busy" and "conforming"

One thing that concerns me is the meanness towards the fat seems to be growing and even the average size people are feeling more oppressed by all the rules, demands and more. While we need laws and rules to keep society civil, and for protection of those who are weaker, why isn't anyone questioning some of the demands out there? Isn't it time to sit back and question where things are going? I am talking about a more wide-ranging topic then just being fat in this world. This is about questioning what you value in this world. Our society seems to be coming the most rule laden, societally disconnected, and depressing place to be.  The bean counters have won justifying their too high salaries by writing endless lists of rules, regulations and forms for people to fill out.  Where are the independent thinkers? I know some of course, but many of us who are that way, feel a heavy blanket thrown over our souls lately. I have my faith to sustain me, but one thing to think about doing, is question some of those experts, question those who say you have to have a perfect body, house, and "life" who pile on the paperwork and demands while offering nothing in return. Yes I had a week filled with way too much paperwork. I'm exhausted. Keeping my body going is "work" enough.  Maybe a copy machine should become part of everyone's living room decor, the way this is going. I don't even have a job, but I feel overwhelmed lately.....

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The obesity thing is just one component, as we are lied to there, they are lying about far more. Maybe my years of not being believed and almost losing my life to the weight gain coming on like a freight train drove me into questioning quite a bit of what I had been told, after all when one's reality does not match what you are told over and over, it has a person start to question other things. I'll state this til the day I die, something else is wrong with me beyond just not eating healthily enough and exercising enough. The 'experts" can consider me a liar, some of the doctors who are more understanding can speak of the metabolic and endocrine difficulties, but I know this body does not work like others. To the people who view me with a jaundiced eye of "You're a fat failure", you simply do not see. The obesity industrial complex sells itself via endless lies. The same media that lies about the effects of radiation from Fukishima, flouride in the water has no problems lying about weight. I believe weight is far more then calories in and calories out and doing the "proper" behavior. They know it too. 



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I feel like it is harder to get decent food. There is the money end to it all but then there is the ACCESS. I am going to be driving 30-40 miles round trip having finally found a decent health food store that sells in bulk. This place was like a food wonderland to me, where I can actually can find food that is nutritious and affordable.

I went to the grocery store and all the pseudo food seems to be in even more shiny very colorful full of primary color boxes. This is just something I noticed the other day. One day looking at one lady's grocery cart, it looked like a clown had vomited. At least when the veggie stands are humming there will be more choice soon.

I could be losing weight, but all the bouncing water weight, makes it hard to know if I am or not. Today I am swollen up.  Why are my legs losing all the weight with loose skin why the middle stays huge?

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One thing about being disabled, is you are on the outskirts of society. I have been on the fringes looking in for quite some years. When one is out of the rat race, it gives one a view from the sidelines, and watching the "game" from afar, some things are changing really radically and I don't think all those changes are good. 

 Well, I am old enough to remember what life used to be, and how instead of endless nightmare futures shown in such movies like the Hunger Games, anyone ever notice how the future always stinks now in movies? If someone did a movie where the future was full of flowers and singing instead of dark cavernous cities full of cruel robots or dictators, would it sell? How come no one is asking about this? How come NONE of our movies from the documentaries to the fiction ever offer any hopefulness or kindness? Watch some old movies some time, click on the classic movie channel and sure while they have some dark stuff like Mildred Pierce many movies used to have messages, many of which were uplifting. What ever happened to that?

I remember when TV shows and others gave people hopeful messages and or had morality plays. Even the plots of Laverne and Shirley simplistic as they were, had good things to say about friendship such as when Laverne got Lenny to forgive Squiggy for his broken leg from a practical joke. I watched one at 4 am, waking up too early, and thought WOW, that being the 1970s, sure there was some wild stuff, but I thought to myself, how different that show was, showing WORKING CLASS people and the joys and commitments of close friendship. Why did this show make me really almost want to cry thinking of the dreck that passes for entertainment now in feeling of extreme nostalgia? Even Little House on the Prairie showed people helping one another.


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Being outside the mainstream of American society and the craziness of it all, looking within, I guess I am horrified at what I see. I spent years in a very rural town and as a member of a very small country church.  Many of my friends were elderly though I knew younger people too. So I had my foot in the old fashioned world for almost 10 years,  and I really didn't want to leave, but change came there too via the economy which changed the town fast and forced many people to leave including us. How do I explain it but trying to state it, it is like seeing a whole way of life slip through one's finger tips? Was life for people supposed to become nothing but about oppression, not having enough money to live on, and feeling beaten down simply by trying to stay afloat and a life of endless goodbyes? I do not think so. Watching my husband work 12-14 hours days only to be cast aside when he got into the arena of late middle age, told me something was very off.  And while some can say, weight and health problems make for a hard life watching the suffering of others grow, tells me the snowball of societal decline isn't just taking the typical "outcasts" of society out anymore such as the disabled like myself, the very elderly, etc, but many average people too who realize that something is being lost but whom feel unable understandably to put it into words. Everyone is stressed out more and more.

One thing that troubles me, is everyone dealing with these difficulties feels so alone, in a society where everyone has been programmed to put on a front. Outside of a few friends, it is not something that is coming up in open conversation. The news isn't telling the truth either.
Does anyone else want to say "Hey wait a minute"? I guess this is more of my thoughts about "dropping out".

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One thing I have noticed is society is getting far more conformist, where people are being told to dress, act and believe the same way. Being a teen in the 80s, I remember even a multitude of sub-cultures and different styles of dress. What happened to that? It seems like all the young people dress alike nowadays which troubles me on a level I can't even explain. Sure there are a few smattering of goths and others, but their definitely was far more variety 30 years ago.

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Everything is getting far more controlled from the TOP, where corporations and the experts are ruling lives far more then they ever could dream of ruling them. Local communities, families, have all been broken up and scattered. Can a community really solidify if everyone is moving every 5 years or people can't even depend on keeping a regular job? John Taylor Gatto, a man who has questioned the control factors implicit in public schools, is right that networks are not the same as a community, he says "A network cannot be a healthy substitute for family or community!" and he is right. Pondering this stuff, I think about how life has become for so many, feeling afloat, having lost all moorings to place and community. It has been the story of my own life.  I believe it is one thing that led to me having an unhealthy, troubled and otherwise stressed life but it is the story of millions of others in this country. I have been reading Gatto's writings this week, and his books have given me a lot to think about. These matters affect obesity, access to food and more too. This quote struck me quite a bit. It's true and it's affecting our very well-being, health and far more.

"Global economics does not speak to the public need for meaningful work, affordable housing, fulfilling education, adequate medical care, a clean environment, honest and accountable government, social and cultural renewal, or simple justice. All global ambitions are based on a definition of productivity and the good life so alienated from common human reality that I am convinced it is wrong and that most people would agree with me if they could perceive an alternative. We might be able to see that if we regained a hold on philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found - in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the free and inexpensive things out of which real families, real friends, and real communities are built - then we would be so self-sufficient we would not even need the material "sufficiency" which our global "experts" are so insistent we be concerned about."

Soon it seems they will be charging us for air to breathe soon too. I told my husband the other day food is getting so expensive, we better get out of a modern apartment, [the house rent here is so high] to a place where we can grow some of our own food. I am not sure how to make this happen, we are poor enough we need to stay on the bus line, in case our older car breaks down but then rent in the houses that would have land by them to use for a garden, are far more expensive. For me as well being the weight I am at and COPD, I need air conditioning to breathe through the summer and to avoid stairs, so it's been complicated. If you have a yard do not take it for granted.

Some may question the ability to garden at all, and you are right. I tried growing some things indoors but it failed. I have dreamed of a more self sufficient life, well as much as one can gain being disabled, but seems like it never will happen. It is strange to be absolutely food insecure and so overweight, but the two really do go hand in hand you know. I may write more on that later.

With family networks, I am feeling sad about my own lack of them. While I keep connected with some family members via the phone and Internet it is not the same as actually having people as part of your life or seeing them on a week to week basis. My parents were upper middle class, it was not a big deal to live hundreds of miles from relatives, they could visit, and travel was affordable to them. To me it is not, there are relatives, I have not seen in 5-6 years, and even one side of the family for 20. To me there is a lot of sadness about this. I have not been able to even be the aunt, I wanted to be, being so far away, though I have traveled when I could. As I have stated before, when you are poor and disabled, you can be left out of the active warp and weave of people's lives. Being severely obese, you do get closed out.  Some of course has to do with your health problems affecting things, it's no one's fault, and it does bother me.

I see people losing relatives, and the horrible grief and more accompanying that, and I do feel very badly for them. They are there to say Goodbye in the nursing home, or hospital.  To one friend, I said, "I have already lost great portions of my family, but in this case, they are still living". One can only do what they can. Modern life, has eroded the importance of certain family relationships. My mother grew up, with her aunts, uncles, cousins involved in her life. Many of mine have forgotten I exist and I fear that my own nieces and nephews just see me as some far away figure though I at least attempt as much involvement with them over the great distances. You want to know people, you just do not want them as strangers you see once every couple years or in some cases far less.

When I try to explain this to some younger people they do not get what I am talking about, for some the distance has become what is natural. I am finding friends and others in my newer community, but I know that feeling of not belonging anywhere haunts me. It really got started when I moved from my last community, something I only have begun to even understand in myself. This feeling of NOT BELONGING anywhere. Of course obesity has played a part in that story, to be honest that may be the worse feeling a severely obese person confronts. My husband has heard me talk about this a lot. I wonder if any others feel this way out there too? I am sure they do.

I went to a poetry reading the other day and heard an older man talk about his family and how they worked together, and about his aunts and uncles were part of his life. One got ill with Alzheimers, and I thought that was very tragic, he was going to visit his family member in the nursing home.  I thought to myself, if someone gets sick in my family, they will sadly most likely be on their own, since 500 miles distance between relatives isn't going to cut it anymore. What is going to happen to our generation when they get old and everyone is far away? Some of us are having health troubles while younger.

**************************************

I am working on community things, I have to get my one disability advocacy project done, and plan to go to disability meeting discussing politics, that should be interesting as well as focusing on trying to help other people and looking forward to a visit from a friend of mine, we have been friends for 26 years.

The Social Stigma of Being Supersized in One's Family

One thing that can happen to fat people especially in the greater sizes is you can be rejected by relatives. You realize while a few closer inner circle relatives from your immediate family remain in your life, the rest barely want anything to do with you. Even if you went to visit their homes out of state years on end even while being ill, you realize this favor is not returned. They just do not come visit you, and in my case, I ended up moving even farther away. I have reached out to aunts, cousins and others only to have endless closed doors. Even other ones who would be allies on the poverty front, want nothing to do with me, my low status within the family based on weight from the ones who are more upper class, normal and thin. In other words the uncle with his two perfectly thin and popular daughters who refuse to even befriend me on a social website, who just went on a cruise to the Bahamas, isn't wasting much time bothering with the likes of me. Usually he just writes that anyone in need of any 'help' aka disability, unemployment, is a "deadbeat" from his hours of being brainwashed by Fox news.

I find myself sometimes shuddering in fear for what awaits for the cousin who has passed the 400lb mark and my two nephews who are in higher weights. How will they be treated once they cross a certain threshold?

I am not the only supersized person I have heard of this happening to. For many families when a person crosses the "acceptable and employed" line of fat into severe obesity and disability, you will see the subtle rejection, you are "not like them", and while some of the more dutiful relatives may keep you around, it is not the same relationships they have with each other. You know when they keep their party secret to keep you away from it, something has gone wrong. The fat person faces earlier on, You are not what they wanted you to be.

Matters of whose fault it is doesn't matter, the relatives can eat far more then you and pay little price but you are still to blame. Their refrigerators full to the bursting with lavish food, they always eat a full plate with seconds at the shared meals, but they aren't fat! They can know about your endocrine struggles and medical history but it does not matter. Some just judge on what they "see" and nothing else.

Even friends of the family join in the fat beat-down-a-thon, one family friend of 30 years duration, told me, that a female relative had been unable to accept my weight and never would be able to. I had already discerned that, but this was told with the woeful eyes, that didn't even try to hide their lack of sympathy and disgust at me for being overweight.

I recently had one relative even defend my ostracization and you can even reach out to the community and will find even others who say to you... "So some of your family rejects you over your health problems?" as if that is acceptable. They meant well, but when you know how people see you, it can impact a person. What other health problems but fat related stuff is even accepted to reject someone over?

I have heard that message too, it is acceptable because you are so far gone. When you have seen years of the looks of disgust on some faces, for being what you are, it does something to a person that goes beyond words.

I have known other supersized people this has happened to. I am NOT the only one. One friend now deceased, had two upper class parents, leave her living in her car to homelessness in her 20s when she reached 600lbs, because "she had made her own bed of fat", and ended up hospitalized from the rigors of living in her car. I never was treated that badly but what did that do to her self esteem alone?

Another friend even with very well off parents here too, worked herself into the ground, even working while severely ill to keep up with the Joneses and maintain a lower middle class lifestyle then disability would bring. There was too much shame in any illness related to fat. I believed this probably ended her life far sooner then it would have been. Here too the family blamed her, even though she was diagnosed with endocrine disease and had lymphedema that brought on pounds of water weight.

Others while the family may help them, get condemned as "burdens". Obesity unlike other illnesses does not earn any sympathy because unlike cancer, cerebral palsy or the wide array of things that 'can go wrong", you are seen at fault. Unlike the drug addicts, and alcoholics, your illness shows and is visible to others, and in some ways the blame can be worse. The drug addicts and alcoholics are told it is an "illness" and offered endless places to get help, rehab, and more while the fat person is told it is a failure of moral character and why don't you work to lose weight and ever wonder why there are so few rehab centers for fat people?

What gets me is I was looking at some family albums, from the 1980s, in these albums I ranged from 13-16 years old. I was big nearly 6 feet tall, and perhaps around 30-40lbs overweight but more LARGE then FAT, what astounds me at the time is I remember being told how utterly fat I was at that age, even by the extended family, almost like I was huger then even now which is ludicrous. I was actually quite near normal. I remember even visiting one grandmother at the time, who allowed me only one meal a day at her house where I got so hungry, I snuck food out of the fridge.

I was able to escape their condemnation, I often think what would have become of me if I had allowed these relatives to fully define who I was? I turned to God for definition. But that said, I think of other supersized fat people facing the daily grinding down of their self esteems and who they are. You never forget the pain.

What is even sadder for me, the distance, and time of 20 years, and living so far from people and health problems making visiting far harder and impossible in some cases, has chipped even the more positive relationships away I wanted so hard to keep. If no one visits you because you live in a medium sized apt, and "there is nothing for their children to do", as the years go by, and you have no money for bus tickets, or gas or long distance travel, you find yourself becoming strangers. Their time is given to who are more mobile, more active, and easier to see.

I often ask myself how did I end up long distance from everyone? This is part of modern society I hate. There is no "home" to move to, trust me I'd already be there even to try and renew relationships and be around my nieces and nephews and part of their DAILY lives, everyone is so scattered.

Being rejected for being fat by relatives, can be one of life's most painful things. What scares me is I can see how the other ones who are fat face different degrees of rejection by the thinner ones. Sometimes you can even see the immediate changes in treatment when fat people lose some weight for a short time. It is actually astonishing to watch. I do not think this is the way things were meant to be. But look at how the airwaves alone are influencing everyone to view the fat. It can be very hard for a fat person to deal with relatives who do not accept them for the person they are inside.

More on Fat Fashion and Places to Get Supersized Clothes

I have realized I hate a lot of what they are trying to sell me for fat clothes. I don't want to wear skulls emblazoned on my jacket and I thought the swing revival died in the 90s. Save me from the tunic and leggings! Get rid of those baby-doll dresses that promote fat infantilization. I'd sooner shred some leggings and burn them before wearing them. Hey I weigh 500lbs I don't want to be dressed like I am 8 years old and Mom is ready to break out the Garanimals. Sometimes I find fat fashion interesting. The focus on bright colors, bows and short skirts floors me. Why do fat women want to wear clothing where to even bend over to get a tissue off the floor means full exposure. Talk about uncomfortable. I have this purple velvet dress that I relegated to only indoor wear, it goes down to my knees because everytime I bent over in the thing, it was an exercise in making sure my butt faced the wall or something, because I didn't want to put on a show.

I checked out acouple fat fashion websites. see here and here. Everyone is young and under 28 years old or so. Most of the clothes are NOT my style. There isn't one outfit in this display I would be comfortable in. I know those plump size 18 women can take things a bit further, but where is the comfort? I think clothes should be comfortable and move with you. Why is everything short, small and so so tight? Why do they always have that size 32 cut off that basically cuts everyone off who crosses from the midsized point to the supersized point? One Note to overweight people, you look better if your clothes fit, and actually even on the bigger side of things! Thin people may look ok in tighter clothes and I think they are nuts too to sacrifice that much comfort for "fashion" but for fat people it is even more uncomfortable.

As I have written before I would be naked if it wasn't for this company. I buy the long dresses. I am very glad I can get clothes that fit and do not shame me and I can have some dignity in. I pray they never go out of business. I need to order acouple dresses soon again. I own this dress, it's one of my latest, size 8x and it's one of my favorites in my wardrobe.

Plus woman, I have ordered from before, but they are somewhat expensive, and I do find the sanctuarie dresses more flattering to my particular body shape. However I will say this, I still own a red dress from them that is about 12 years old and it has held it's own and except for a small pocket rip is still going. Which reminds me I need to get that dress repaired.

Making it Big has good clothes, very good clothes, some of the dresses I wore back in the 1990s from this place I still remember fondly including a purple cotton dress, but they were very expensive, and for someone as poor as me, that was a struggle. They dropped their sizes down, not sure why, which was kind of disappointing. Now everything only goes up to an 82 inch hip.

I love Peggy Lutz too, as I have written about a dress I had from them once. I had another blue dress that I wore at my largest size that was a great dress as well. However they are VERY EXPENSIVE. If I won the Lotto, I probably would go over and buy the place out but for now am too broke but the clothes are designed well. Larger people can order clothes past the already marked sizes, their sizes go up to 78 inch hips but I ordered a dress at my largest size when my hips were in the low 100s.

I ordered clothing off ebay for years, while very poor, but now I can't find any supersized clothing over there anymore outside of the goth/renaissance stuff that looks more for Halloween rather then any day wear. Can someone tell me what happened over there? Why is there no more plus sized clothing for supersized people on ebay?

One thing about being the size I am and was, you can't just go get cheap clothes from thrift or Wal-mart, I had to pony up the cash, or go naked. I tried sewing but was very very bad at it. I envy those who can just go get an outfit at thrift. Clothing comes very dear to those of us in the very high sizes.

Well those are my favorite places to get clothes and my other thoughts on fat fashion, no more leggings! Please!

Fat Hate In the Art World

Warning images may be disturbing:

John Issacs "I can't help the way I feel" 2003

wax, resin, polystyrene, steel

86 1/2 x 59 x 70 inches

220 x 150 x 170 cm

Wellcome Trust Collection , London

Name unknown... {I did search but figured out it was a sculpture in a EU art museum]

I always suspected the worse fat haters saw me as a hunk of meat, and not much more. I believe in our society today, as focus on the body and temporal outdistances focus on the soul, this is part of the increasing evil in the world, but one can see this in the art world too. I refuse to go be a "hunk of meat" for anyone.

One thing, I majored in art education in college, so art was part of my life for a long time and this included a stint as an art teacher and even work in art therapy, in my pre-disability days. I was a good art teacher, one student even won a national award,  and used to make lesson plans up not even needing books, remembering to incorporate the core basics of what I wanted to teach. Good art can teach people many other skills, being able to visualize ideas, creativity and planning. If my health held out, I probably would still be an art teacher today, teaching in some high school. Even my career transitions [paralegal/residential counselor] was more about health needs then anything else and the price of failing medical clearances for the school districts due to my severe breathing issues and asthma by an early age. You can't tell a high school principal there will be no ceramics, because the clay dust makes me wheeze.

However I never was able to enter the art world, very easily though I have privately sold some paintings for hundreds of dollars including at a "do it yourself" art show where I sold 8 pieces. There was time when I tried to enter a painting in my college's art show, that I later sold for a very high amount , where it was rejected. I would go to that show to see what replaced my entry and would find a tall shelf, with different colors of pee [yes urine] in jars where some art school hipster actually had collected it from various people. How do you strike up that conversation? "Hi, I need some of your pee for my exhibit". LOL

This little episode would shock me and tell me what the art world had become. I often later joked, if I had burned up some baby dolls and glued them to a canvas, that I would have done far better in that particular art show. By the way that was not some punk gallery, but my collegiate alma matter having a "graduate" art show.

In the art world, from what I can tell only certain worldviews are espoused. Where does one go, if they find the facetious, ironic, hipster, "shock to make a point" art annoying. What if you crack open a copy of Juxtapoz and simply want to throw up and wonder why everything looks so evil? American Artist is more my speed. The art world is not an "open world" at all, you need connections to get in, and to be welcomed in the door. Upturned noses and wine parties with fancy finger foods, I've seen it all.

Being in a lower socio-economic group, well, the doors often have remained closed. The Art shows want $30-80 dollars a pop which you may as well light a match to once they reject your art work. Part of me thinks they just let their friends work in, and leave it at that. One friend even had international showings but still dealt with the expenses, the art world was NOT a lucrative field. I faced that of course too in the art education world where whenever the school or alternative school gets short on funds, the art teacher is the first out the door.  So years ago I parted ways. Don't get me wrong I love art, and art museum stints, but remained an "outsider".

One thing I have noticed though in the elitist art world, fat people aren't too welcomed. If you debase yourself and they decide to make you their pet, which I refused to do, sometimes some get in. I still remember the woman at one art group, who wore around a size 22 and painted endless paintings of herself being fat and NAKED in front of a mirror. She was middle aged and really not that distinctive, but every painting had every nuance of flesh, every roll, hair, pimple in full view. It seemed like narcissism run amuk. I being young and somewhat foolish about the politics of the art world, asked her, "Why do you only paint yourself and naked over and over?" She went into some diatribe about self acceptance and bodily context, blah blah, but I then said "But you're naked!"

Ever take a look at fat art, and notice how many have to get naked or dress like hookers to get a look-see? Why is everyone naked? Even Spock is out there taking naked pictures of fat women supposedly for art's sake.

Now no one is naked here, but the debasement rule is there.



I felt the same way about the Obeast Project. Fat person debases themselves, while calling it "contextual art" to supposedly prove a point and it gets museum attention. One question I have for the masses, why do fat people always have to shred every ounce of dignity to get any attention out there? Come on people, you are playing into fat hating hands. Even this painting that sold for 33 million seemed to be just about displaying a fat person as naked {I censored it a bit because I want to keep this blog at least PG} and sprawled out on a couch. She is displayed in a rather unseemly fashion. Yeah call me Victorian, repressed but come on, do you think a naked picture of a woman that could be someone's Mom looking like she passed out from a bender or the fat haters would say mountains of Ho-Hos and Doritos,  is great art?

Now back to the two art works at the top of this page, one I cropped because the lady is totally naked and someone else airbrushed the top part, that one definitely focused on the body to the demise of everything else. The art work is basically pornographic, but because it mocks someone who is fat, showing every crevice in exaggerated detail, the art museum denizens run for their checkbooks. Then you have the guy who hates fat people so much even the title, denotes the blame, as he sculpts a fat person as a hunk of flesh that has basically eaten their own head and left thinner legs with bad circulation. There he basically kicks any fat person especially of any supersize in the teeth, and does the typical status quo game blame.

Even when you take a look at the crop art world, I guess a pig on an exercise bike sums it up what is going on there.

I was once told by someone who was well meaning to turn in some art to an art show not in person because I would be discriminated against and they would not want a 500lb person showing up at the artist opening. I really wondered about that, and it made me pause. I know that goes on. But one thing I am really wondering is why is so much fat art if it happens to even be allowed based on open or willing debasement and nudity?

By the way, at the art show, I had where I sold 8 pieces, I sold them at REAL PRICES to REAL PEOPLE. Some made the three figure mark, but I didn't ask for the crazy prices you see at most art museums. There should be an "outsider art" movement aside from the snooty-ville, over-intellectualized nonsense, if I was 20 again, maybe I'd spear something like that. Lets have some art for FAT people, that doesn't insult us or make the price of being naked or degraded to show up to the party!

I think I am too old fashioned for the art world.

What Being Fat Has Cost Me

My husband tells me when I get in regretful moods, not to blame myself, "you did what you could". He was there, right after the first 50lbs of the fast weight gain, and saw how ill I got, where my hair fell out, and all the other signs and symptoms and how FAST the weight all came on. He knows my life has not been normal and knows what I eat everyday. At least one thing I have been spared is one of those spouses that goes to complain about me on "My Fat Spouse", the people who all seem delusional in their idea that anyone would choose to be fat. He is larger himself but certainly nowhere near my weight category. I suspect when we were young, given the immediacy of my weight gain, I knew even during those ages, we thought I would get "better" or more normal but at the time I was married, I told him, "I may not live long", and it's true, I married at or near my peak weight.

Lately thought I have been rather pensive and thinking over life, the last few years have been spent in a sort of middle life crisis sparked off by moving out of my old missed rural town. While I am getting involved in the community, volunteering and meeting friends as much as is possible here working around my housebound times, I never got over that feeling of feeling sort of "lost" like I do not have a niche anywhere. As I have gotten older this feeling has only gotten stronger. Where do 500lb people fit in, in today's world? You know that your body alone gives you a sustainable "outcast" status in many circles even if you have a relationship with God, community involvement, friends and activities.

I managed in my last small town to an extent with a great small close knit church and other groups I was involved in and working on it now here too, but life spent as an economic nomad, with a very spread out uninvolved family network where weight alone has made me the black sheep, this feeling seems to be growing stronger with age. I believe one of the worse things about being fat, or in these high weight categories, is there are very few who share in your pain, in other words, most normal people do not understand your day to day existence. In other words, I think my 15 years of being in the super-stratosphere weights, has taken it's toll. Who relates to my life? Most people who have been my weight are dead within a few years. I have trudged along for over 15, since my weight peaked in 1998. There are no books, no websites, so few to connect to, who has shared in this experience. I found two friends one who became very close, who did. They are both gone now, and I miss them everyday. 


One odd thing is to think back to the days, when I was an art teacher, earned my bachelors degree, and worked as a residential counselor, and think of how much I struggled from illness to even get through college and do these jobs, and before the gain, was trying to switch into the paralegal field. I know the fat cost me the career. Some could concede given that my lungs went before the weight came, that there were other factors far beyond obesity and I would agree but I think of what I could have accomplished in life without this burden of a body to carry around and it does grate on me. Thoughts about what I could have been or done in life, come forth. What could I have done for others without this burden?

Severe obesity whatever it's causes, endocrine, metabolic, food addiction issues, almost does relegate one to a regressed adulthood. Now that I have hit middle age, I look around and realize, that it impacted everything, the career, the socio-economics-the times of poverty, and life itself.  My affected fertility which meant no children, the severe health problems, and more, paved a way that would be very difficult. Other adults my age that grew up in my socio-economic level,  have fully developed careers--[well those the economy hasn't managed to wipe out yet], homes, and are becoming grandparents.  Now if one made the mistake of endless comparison, only depression would be the reward. There are other things I have managed in life such as volunteering, art, poetry, marriage, good friendships. I still have plans as well in where to move forward.  There was the time when I got to work as an art teacher and others that were enjoyable. I have found my own meaning in life and because my weight gain came later at least got to live in semi-normal land until my late 20s but I know the weight narrowed down my world and has come at a major cost.

These are things they won't talk about on size acceptance websites, but I will talk about it. Many out there do not want the truth spoken. Does this mean, go starve yourself to reclaim a life? Even I know only the very few escape, sometimes the rare person usually with normal metabolism who are able to overcome a psychological based eating disorder and start eating normally sometimes make it out but the fact of the matter is, very few are escaping and the pat answers aren't doing it anymore. I even believe myself to be a rarity in having backed away from near 700lbs and managing to stay alive. While the world will judge me, I believe God knows what I went through and understands.

I Drove Yesterday

I  have a legal license, but haven't driven very much in the last few years. I am trying to be more independent and no it is not easy. Most people my size can't even leave the house, but I drove two miles down the street to a friend's apartment. Most do not realize how hard I work to hold on to what I can, in terms of operating like a normal person. I do drive safe and to places I can handle close by. I probably do drive like an old lady, but at least I can still do it. I can't have husband take me every single solitary place I want to go.  There was weight loss, could tell sitting in the car.

One thing when you get to the great weights, you can lose driving ability. I didn't own a car during my worse weights but would not been able to drive. After the initial 150lb loss from 700lbs,  I did drive around my last small town pretty freely to church and friend's houses for years though I stayed within a 12 or so mile radius but when we moved here, scared of the far higher volume of traffic, I started driving less. We did have a car for a time, I could not fit in to drive, but switching to vans, I fit OK. Sometimes I worry about how much smaller they are making the inside of cars. That concerns me. Haven't they figured out the population is bigger and fatter?

A Short Poem:

A Short Poem: I wrote this acouple years ago. When you read the end, I really feel that way, because this body works so differently.

CIRCUS LADY FAT

Everyone thinks two hams is what I eat

Add in five cakes after dinner

The Weight Watchers lady yelled at me

for being the worse weight loss sinner

Only two lbs lost in four weeks

Cabbage soup coming out of my ears

Trying get my name off the list of freaks

for eating a second bowl of soup

for daring to eat something sweet

Geometrics a laughing joke

giant swelling turning brown

the price of fat leaving you broke

Body as enemy sinking down

Diagnosed with three glandular disease

thyroid dead, balding head

This isn't from eating too much cheese

I look at the thin people with their skinny physiques

and ask myself

are we even the same species?

Collecting Stamps

Collecting stamps is a good hobby for a disabled person. I enjoy collecting them, it is a low stress hobby unlike many that require even more expensive equipment, time and money, I always was interested in art and history so brought those two interests together in one hobby. I have collected stamps for two years. This is a fun hobby and even if you are lower income, you can find cheaper deals to buy stamps and trade and sort them. Unsorted stamps are cheaper and easier to come by.

I was a Fat Goth

Growing-up for goths

"Punks grow out of it and ravers stop raving. Why do goths just carry on? Sociologists can explain"

Dr Paul Hodkinson, deputy head of Surrey University's sociology department and an expert in youth music subcultures, has been re-interviewing a group of goths he first studied in the late 1990s to find out. "They were teenagers and in their early 20s then, and I thought it would be interesting to go back because a number of people do stay involved in the goth scene," he explains.

Though many people who belong to youth subcultures such as punk and rave tend to drift away in their 20s, Hodkinson says it's more likely that older goths will want to remain involved in the scene, even though it may become harder to combine with the responsibilities that come with age.

To outsiders, it's the visual markers of being a goth – long, dyed-black hair, black clothes, pale faces contrasted with dark, dramatic eye make-up –that stand out.

Years ago, I was a goth, my favorite bands of all time was Sisters of Mercy, and Mission UK and even industrial bands like Skinny Puppy. I wore nothing but black for at least a three year period of time and probably a life long interest in Victoriana got started around this time. Some of my outfits were interesting such as the one with black boots and a long black dress with row of buttons down the front with a cinched waist. While I never did the white face thing, and my sad budget precluded really taking the Propaganda magazine thing too far, I was into it enough to be called GOTH by others.

Today there would be far more clothing choices but back then, I wanted to gag at the clothing offered in your typical Lane Bryant and wanted some "cool" clothes. Silver jewelry formed the icing on the cake. In many ways, I was the sterotypical art student. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, and shake that young girl, and say: "Hey don't give in to the manufactured rebellion and quit listening to that clinical depression causing music!" Go grow a garden or something! One sad thing about our society, is the many traps they have waiting for every variety of person to lead you to negative places.

Today given my religious viewpoints, I have given up goth-dom. I am no longer a goth. At my age it would be beyond silly though I guess there are still some 40 something goths out there. The idea makes me kind of laugh,   I imagine a bunch of even more wrinkled up Robert Smith's sitting around. He looked like he aged out of it even by the 1990s.

Though my husband likes to joke, "Yes you still are, thats why you dress like its 1890". Ok you won't find me wearing a brightly colored sweater with a Christmas tree on the front of it, or pink sweats anytime soon but I found this Guardian article odd, because here in America, I do not see a bunch of old goths walking around.

I believe a fascination with dark things isn't so positive anymore. I wonder how many young fat girls become goths as a way to seek an identity or to be different or to even depart or speak against a world that condemns them? I definitely was one of them. In other words, if you are not acceptable in the mainstream world, why wouldn't you feel enticed to join a sub-culture where being an outcast is not such a bad thing?

I've seen this picture, webwide. I bleeped out the curse word on her shirt. I can understand this girl to a point because I was her, though I was too shy to cuss people out I didn't know and my dress style was very different, free of tattoos and more Victorian.  What's with the odd anchor? The angry stance while one can understand given what young fat people go through  probably doesn't help her make friends and influence people.

One wonders about all these subcultures. I noticed webwide there were jokes about fat goths, the  lithe supposedly being only ones allowed to apply. I remember that, being fat and a goth especially in the 80's was kind of strange even when I was into it. Guess some of the goths don't want the fat people around even still. The ideal was lithe-thin, heroin addict looking dark circled eyes types, not big, fat and burly. Andrew Eldritch didn't date fat girls.

Update: I am a goth again, I escaped the fundies, the goth me was the real me. Elder Goths Unite!

Obesity Risk May Be Lowered By Moving Into A Better Neighborhood

"Obesity Risk May Be Lowered by Moving Into a Better Neighborhood"

see here too

"Obesity rates are about one-fifth lower in women who moved from poor neighborhoods into low-poverty neighborhoods than those who did not move, according to results from a federal housing program initiated in the mid-1990s."

.

I found this one really interesting, it seems living in a dangerous crime-ridden neighborhood heightens obesity risk. I wonder how much of this is increased cortisol from the constant 'fight or flight" feelings one has living in such a place. When I had my weight gain, I lived in a more dangerous 'inner-city" neighborhood for around 4 and half years. Three of those years, I worked, but the last was when I was disabled.

One had to be tough to survive, we are talking a place where beggars would come up to you daily at the local bus stop, and where you could get jumped. I saw an armed robbery, got attacked--was able to fight off my attacker whose intentions were rape before anything too bad happened, and life was spent with constant crime, stress and knowing that your neighbors were not there to "help" you but often there to rob or take you for a ride. The times of being followed or being set up as a "would be" victim, were incredible. There was a meanness in every place, no mercy, no neighborly kindness just cruelty, get sick in a store and ask to use a bathroom, they would send you away. By the way, the most dangerous place was the subway stands and daring to leave the house after dark. Even the cab drivers and cable companies avoided my then neighborhood. One I befriended from meeting his cab in a neighboring better area, provided a lot of my transportation while others refused.

  For many in these bad neighborhoods, life itself is filled with daily danger. Gang-bangers in the streets, beggars, and would be hustlers on the take everywhere you turn does not make for a pleasant life. Even the closed Chinese restaurant across the street from my ghetto apartment had homeless people sleeping on it's ledge with their shopping carts. Police cars filled the streets to bust the drug dealers across the way. It was despair, depression and fear all rolled up in one. When you did meet the occasional kind face, they were beaten down and poor too.  Home life wasn't much better, I would see around 6-8 mice and rats a day run across the floors in the cramped 2 room apartment. Well at least with the rats and mice, there was no cockroaches.

Some may be in shock, that I would admit such poverty, often times in this culture, one is told to hide such a thing, lest it be a negative reflection on you, but I lived it, and it played an integral part in my health collapse and severe weight gain. 

I did not end up there by choice, I moved to that big city to avoid homelessness after a teaching job lay off which led to a year of unemployment and underemployment, piecing together sub teaching jobs and fast food work, hoping I could jump onto a career track in social work and finish an already started paralegal degree. My first teaching job was grant-based and the grant had ended. [I had a bachelors degree from earlier on]. I did not drug or drink my way into this life, but slipped through the cracks and then some.

Later my family would help, but a older male relative at that time, was of the "let them sink or swim school" blaming me for my then growing weight, career failures and health problems. Looking back, even the pictures of my swollen face, hands and feet were extreme, I was sick before the move to this place even happened. My health had been rotten since college, denying me even regular teaching jobs from failing medical exams. This was during my mid 20s and during the mid 1990s.

My low residential counselor wages, while offering me training in self defense ironically and experience working with the very violent and mentally ill youth which served as being useful for street survival, just didn't pay the rent in a better part of town. $350-450 dollar a month rent in that particular metropolitan city meant living in dangerous neighborhoods. My take home pay was a lousy average $1000 a month. Transportation was very expensive as well, even a trip just down the road could cost 6 dollars to even just get there. Which made life much more narrow, and activities more dear. I know that impacted things too.

I do believe that my weight gain came about from severe economic stresses and what I faced day to day, and my endocrine system saying "I am out of here!"

That is one thing they do not tell people, live in a constant state of vigilance, and fear and the body is pumping cortisol like gang-busters even in normal healthy people. This is one reason I believe obesity is far higher in impoverished populations in America. Add to that endocrine disease and the use of steroids to control serious breathing problems and it was the set up for the snowball to run right down the hill. They should do a study of the obesity differences between huge teeming cities and more rural areas, would be of interest. When humans live in concrete jungles, health diminishes. How much of the obesity epidemic is based on the bad environment so many are being forced to live in? In other words, its not you that is "sick", it is your surroundings and their impact on you.

They mention the lack of access to healthy food, that plays a part. In the ghetto, you have the corner stores full of snack foods and the food is of far lower quality even in the bigger grocery stores. That's where they send the rotten produce and meat. I have seen it with my own eyes. No cab money to get to the decent grocery store in the neighboring suburbs? You are stuck with the little store across the street that sells ramen noodles and hotdogs and one dying onion in the bin by the door.  By the way, the poverty brokers like the food pantries and rest, aren't passing out fresh fruit and vegetables, you are getting the most processed carbohydrate rich foods possible. This is true across the board and even applied to later communities. Who decided the poor should just eat endless boxes of spaghetti, beans, and rice?

I believe poverty itself in this society which does not offer strong social networks, stable jobs or communities anymore, jacks up ones cortisol levels to the ceiling especially when crime rates rise. I know how I feel when the budget is always strained to the breaking point or weeks where I am trying to assemble meals from the dregs from the refrigerator, and it's always the good stuff that disappears the fastest. Often the very poor do not have resources to even cook decently. Slumlords do not care about making sure your stove works. I was forced to cook with an old microwave and one plug in spiral during these years. No baking bread, I didn't have a bread pan, or gardening there either, there was no land to be had or patio.

Life in the ghetto stunk. I often think to myself if I had been a woman of normal socio-economic means, that my life would have turned out far different. For me obesity is automatically tied to food insecurity and opening an empty fridge and realizing that week there is no money for food. Some may say, how does one get so fat, having no food? Wouldn't it be the opposite, but I often wonder how my 1 meal a day lifestyle, during my worse years of poverty affected my metabolism? Even now, during the wealthier times, I know the weight dips. More food and more variety for me means, better weight loss and control of hunger. More money means more activities. Today I am provided for and God responds to my needs, but those times have stayed with me.

There is a reason I escaped to a very small town, a town I still miss right now. Watching its economic demise, was very difficult. This place is too urban for my tastes though I live in a safer more affluent neighborhood here by default. But I know it's important to pay more rent even for my health and well-being, but live with a life long fear now of living in a place where just leaving your front door, means the predators are upon you. I have decided if I am ever that poor again, that I will hop on a bus to a middle of nowhere small town and rent a room. Learning the hard lesson that peace and safety come first came too late for me.

The night before we escaped to a small town for almost 10 years, I still remember the gun shots at 5 am. Bang Bang Bang! probably some sort of gang fight down the street. I was very glad to be getting out.

Being poor does make you fat. The elitist size acceptance types can claim that obesity isn't a disease or ignore the poverty and obesity quotients. No hobbling to the bus stop for them worrying about getting jumped. They live in another world. Sadly because of their elitism, those who suffer from obesity and are poor and who live in neighborhoods like this still will go unheard. At least I am one of the lucky ones who escaped.